Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to

arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such
as our economic system and our pattern of family life. (Sometimes a distinction is
made between political and social philosophy, but I shall use ‘political philosophy’
in a broad sense to include both.) Political philosophers seek to establish basic
principles that will, for instance, justify a particular form of state, show that
individuals have certain inalienable rights, or tell us how a society’s material
resources should be shared among its members. This usually involves analysing
and interpreting ideas like freedom, justice, authority and democracy and then
applying them in a critical way to the social and political institutions that currently
exist. Some political philosophers have tried primarily to justify the prevailing
arrangements of their society; others have painted pictures of an ideal state or an
ideal social world that is very different from anything we have so far experienced
(see Utopianism).
Political philosophy has been practised for as long as human beings have regarded
their collective arrangements not as immutable and part of the natural order but as
potentially open to change, and therefore as standing in need of philosophical
justification. It can be found in many different cultures, and has taken a wide
variety of forms. There are two reasons for this diversity. First, the methods and
approaches used by political philosophers reflect the general philosophical
tendencies of their epoch. Developments in epistemology and ethics, for instance,
alter the assumptions on which political philosophy can proceed. But second, the
political philosopher’s agenda is largely set by the pressing political issues of the
day. In medieval Europe, for instance, the proper relationship between Church and
State became a central issue in political philosophy; in the early modern period the
main argument was between defenders of absolutism and those who sought to
justify a limited, constitutional state. In the nineteenth century, the social question -
the question of how an industrial society should organize its economy and its
welfare system - came to the fore. When we study the history of political
philosophy, therefore, we find that alongside some perennial questions - how can
one person ever justifiably claim the authority to govern another person, for
instance? - there are some big changes: in the issues addressed, in the language
used to address them, and in the underlying premises on which the political
philosopher rests his or her argument. (For the development of the Western
tradition of political philosophy, see political philosophy, history of; for other
traditions, see Political philosophy in classical Islam; Political philosophy,
Indian; African philosophy, Anglophone; Marxism, Chinese; Bushi
philosophy; Shōtoku constitution; Sunzi; Marxist thought in Latin America.)
One question that immediately arises is whether the principles that political
philosophers establish are to be regarded as having universal validity, or whether
they should be seen as expressing the assumptions and the values of a particular
political community. This question about the scope and status of political
philosophy has been fiercely debated in recent years (see Political philosophy,
nature of). It is closely connected to a question about human nature (see Human
nature). In order to justify a set of collective arrangements, a political philosophy
must say something about the nature of human beings, about their needs, their
capacities, about whether they are mainly selfish or mainly altruistic, and so forth.
But can we discover common traits in human beings everywhere, or are people’s
characters predominantly shaped by the particular culture they belong to?
If we examine the main works of political philosophy in past centuries, they can be
divided roughly into two categories. On the one hand there are those produced by
philosophers elaborating general philosophical systems, whose political philosophy
flows out of and forms an integral part of those systems. Leading philosophers who
have made substantial contributions to political thought
include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Hegel and
J.S. Mill. On the other hand there are social and political thinkers whose
contribution to philosophy as a whole has had little lasting significance, but who
have made influential contributions to political philosophy specifically. In this
category we may include Cicero, Marsilius of
Padua, Machiavelli, Grotius, Rousseau, Bentham, Fichte and Marx. Two important
figures whose work reflects non-Western influences are Ibn
Khaldhun and Kauṭilya. Among the most important twentieth-century political
thinkers
are Arendt, Berlin, Dewey, Foucault, Gandhi, Gramsci, Habermas, Hayek, Oakesh
ott, Rawls, Sartre and Taylor.